Science: New Toys

For the first time since 1940, U.S. physicists could talk about atomic
fission without looking over their shoulders. The subject of The Bomb
itself was taboo at the annual midwest meeting of the American Physical
Society in Chicago; but there was plenty more for the atomic scientists
to talk about.

Fishing Probabilities. Swaggering little Enrico Fermi, who put the match
to history's first atomic chain reaction, led off with a circumstantial
account of how a chain-reacting pile works.

A typical pile is a 20-foot block of graphite (pure carbon) interlarded
with lumps of fissionable...